Pros:-Climbing! I actually think I'm enjoying climbing more in this than in actual climbing-game The Climb. Largely because there's actually something at stake here. Falling won't mean much damage, but you will make a lot of racket and draw the attention of nearby enemies, so climbing the rafters over a room-full of guards can be quite tense. Plus, hand-based movement works great in VR games, so while the climbing gloves in Thief 3 might've been "whatever" here they're a great fit.-Hand-waving-propelled locomotion. Yup, it actually works nicely, I don't think I've felt any nausea either.

Cons:-Level design. The first level is very linear and way too hard too early, like the devs are desperate to prove this is a hardcore stealth challenge right out of the gate. How about letting us ease into this new form of gameplay a bit, eh? Besides that the levels are sparse and generic looking, they pale in comparison to the kind of stuff the Thief FM community regularly releases.-Killing. You can just gently tap a guard's head with your Assassin's Creed-style wrist-blade and he'll collapse into a ragdoll-pile. It feels very wonky.

More impressions later in the week after I've finished the 2 available levels. Not sure I can recommend this yet, unless you're very excited by the idea of a proper made-for-VR stealth game. (And, I mean, who isn't?)

Actual playtime: ~35 minutes, including sweat-wiping pauses. All that crouching and climbing takes a toll! The glow in the lower right corner is the lightgem btw, like most things in the peripheral view it gets cropped out in the monitor-view.

Jeshibu on 8/2/2018 at 00:17I bought it and played through the tutorial, and stopped at the Dungeons chapter 1 text because the framerate was messing up so bad. All in all, I'd say I wouldn't recommend it yet. Too many rough edges and annoyances.I am, in theory, a fan of what Thirith (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148071&p=2365097&viewfull=1#post2365097) coined as Masturmotion&#8482;, but it regularly sent me careening down the last direction I walked in at a sprinter's pace for bending over, or for no reason at all. Maybe it's related to my machine needing to be beefier.The climbing is at once too powerful (need to bypass anything? climb!) and frustratingly glitchy, with some (parts of) surfaces not being climbable, while most everything else is. Besides that, it suffers from the average Vive-centric control issues with the index finger triggers being used for grip, and the tutorial texts refer to the analog stick as the trackpad (also sprinting is clicking in the stick).I hope they get to more open spaces soon-ish, because I'm not a fan of the dungeon/sewer level aesthetic with its identical stone texture everywhere. In fact, if they have to include them, I'd say it'd be wise not to front-load them all.I'll try it again later this week. Might still refund it.

Looking up that wank joke again made me realize how similar Thorrows is, btw. Wonder how they're doing, since their last post is from September.

Thirith on 8/2/2018 at 07:43Heh. I'd forgotten that Masturmotion&#8482; moniker. I've yet to play a game that actually has this; have you played any good ones that let you walk by moving your hands?

Jeshibu on 13/2/2018 at 15:18Can't say that I've played any others.

Alright, so I've been playing more of this and I'm not feeling better about it, really.

In the meantime, there's been an update that limits the climbing with a stamina system, and makes it so that entering combat is no longer an automatic checkpoint reload. I've also found out why I'm sometimes rocketing forward while I'm not pressing anything: putting a finger on the forward button is the same as pressing it. This, combined with a shitty framerate means that it sometimes detects wild jumps in hand movement that aren't really there, and propels you forward. Another weird thing is that your movement direction with the arm-swinging is determined by an average of both hands. Doesn't really feel right. The bad framerate also interferes with climbing, making grips sometimes not register immediately, which is fatal if you're already moving your other hand to the next position. Had this drop me into the middle of a well lit hall surrounded by enemies a few times. They're going to patch the swinging movement to take framerate into account, thankfully.

I finished the first level proper by making a killing field of some stairs. In attempt to clear out some guys next to a hallway, I shanked a guy while he was walking down some stairs to the main hall with lots of dudes. Apparently he made enough noise falling down that some guys came to check it out, who eventually searched close enough to me to shank them, and so on, until the hall's worth of dudes was lying face-down on the stairs.

My biggest issue so far (aside from the framerate) is its lack of personality. The guards look generic, there's no gadgets or options aside from climbing, throwing stuff for distraction, and shanking. The levels all have the same stone walls, which makes everything look identical and cramped. Your only objective is a keyhunt to get to the end of the level, and the keys light up like neon beacons on the belts of guards. What little story there is is conveyed through floating text.

I think I'll put this away until it's optimized or I get a new GPU.

henke on 14/2/2018 at 09:50The -40% discount ends in 21 hours, and I'm not sure I can recommend it at the moment. Still haven't beaten the second level. I feel like I've scoured it but I still can't find the key I need to progress.

While it's a tad wonky as a stealth game I really do like the movement and climbing. I kinda wish something that's more of an exploration platformer was made using this system. A first person Tomb Raider would be a good fit.